If it had been a 3 hour race, Audi would have won it in shining colors, unfortunately for them, it was a 6 hour race and luck was not on their side tonight. The Audi No. 8 had a stall that took away by half the lead it had over third place and then the leading Audi No. 7 was clipped when trying to pass the Ford GT No. 66 on turn 18 both cars spinning out of control with the Audi hitting the barrier hard and not being able to return by its own means Race Control brought out a Full Course Yellow. Eventually the Audi made it back heavily damaged but came back 6 laps behind the leaders. It was a hard hit to take by Audi but they kept on fighting with the No. 8 which hat to recover from the positions it lost due to the Yellow flag as well and finished 2nd in the end behind the No. 1 Porsche and just over 2 seconds ahead of an inspired Toyota Team with the No. 6 car in the hands of Sarrazin.
In LMP2 was as hard as predicted, positions shuffled around and specially for car No. 36 from Signatech Alpine who had to overcome a peculiar problem when they had an issue with the Master Switch of their car at turn 4, the driver had to get out of the car, fit it correctly and then go back in, put the seat belt back on and managed to continue to finish 1st in the class. Second place went to car No. 43 from RGR Sport by Morand and 3rd place went to car No. 26 from G-Drive Racing. Manor’s No. 44 had suspension failure and did not finish and car No. 42 from Strakka Racing could not finish as well.
LMGTE Pro was won by the No. 95 Aston Martin 11 seconds clear of AF Corse Ferrari No. 51 and the No. 71. LMGTE Am was also won by an Aston Martin, the No. 98 with a commanding lead over car No. 78, the KCMG Porsche of over 1 minute. Third place was car No. 50, the Corvette from Labre Competition. Next race will be at Fuji, 3 races are still left in the fight for the Championship.
Webber celebrates the third win in a row for Porsche No. 1. Copyright @ Dave Wilson Photography / Wise Racing World
Audi certainly started at full throttle and have established a clear advantage of over 40 seconds toward the third placed Porsche. One full course yellow saw the LMP1 H cars all go into the pits, Toyota has kept Porsche under pressure since the start of the race and double stinting the tires put them briefly in front of one of them. Exactly at one minute from the 3 hour mark the No. 86 Gulf Racing Porsche had an off at turn 1 while exiting the pit lane, got stock in the gravel trap and caused the second full course yellow that allowed several cars to stop. At this point positions are as follows:
Jordan and Ricky Taylor, Drivers of the winning No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette. Copyright @ Dave Wilson Photography / Wise Racing World
Call it dramatic, the WeatherTec SportsCar Championship race at Circuit Of The Americas gave fans a chance to see some hard good racing among the 4 categories running. Championship points are important but winning is in the driver’s DNA so even though they had the points thought in their minds they were looking for opportunities to pass the guy ahead. In the Prototype class, Ricky Taylor did a good job to keep the position at turn 1 and immediately started to pull away to make a gap that would eventually disappear after the first Safety Car period on lap 17 when the Visit Florida car No. 90 had an issue exiting turn 11. They kept the lead on the re-start and built a good cushion again towards the end but Jordan made a mistake and spun at turn 20 with a few laps to go which took almost all the difference away setting the backdrop of a good fight for the next laps with Wheelen’s Car No. 31 with Curran/Cameron but in the end Taylor managed to win it. Third place went to car No. 5 and team mates of Car No. 31 Sampling Corvette, they had an eventful race being involved in a meddle between team mates that caused him to spin and the No. 31 had a drive through penalty, both cars managed to recover a lot of ground by double stinting their tires and helped by the first yellow flag made up the ground lost.
Curtis/Klingmann (No. 96 BMW) and Van Der Zande/Popow (No.8 PC) winners of GTD and PC categories. Copyright @ Dave Wilson Photography / Wise Racing World
In Prototype Challenge, Starworks car No. 8 came through the field from 4th to 2nd thanks to good strategy and steady driving but 2 laps from the end they managed to pass for 1st and held the position under increasing pressure of faster paced PR1 car No. 52 (Kimber-Smith/R. Alan) to finish less than a second ahead. Third place went to car No. 38 of Performance Tech Motorsports with drivers No. Boulle and J. French.
GTLM also brought a lot of exciting maneuvers from the drivers in the fight for the win. Risi Competizione’s Ferrari No. 62 took the early lead at the start passing Ford Chip Ganassi’s GT No. 67 pole sitter along with the two Porsches No. 911 and No. 912. Vilander finished his stint in front and then Fisichella took over, lost the position to Tandy but then pressured on and taking advantage of the traffic he got close enough and muscled his way through to re take the lead at turn 11 but then hit electric problems that forced him to go into pits, reset the car but lost all chances. Bamber in No. 912 went on to win it as Tandy gave him the position to make it a 1-2 for Porsche North America. Third place went to Corvette Racing’s car No. 3 with Magnussen and Garcia doing a very good race with a car that did not seem to have the pace in qualifying.
Makowiecki/Bamber, winners with the No. 912 Porsche in GTLM. Copyright @ Dave Wilson Photography / Wise Racing World
GTD had a very dramatic end as well when the pole sitter car No. 23 from Team Seattle could not match the strategy of Turner Motorsport’s No. 96 BMW an lost the lead, but on the last lap, at turn 14 it stopped, out of fuel…. Turner’s No. 96 went on to win with B. Curtis and J. Klingmann followed by the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 who escaped getting a pit penalty that was initially given and then rescinded by the Stewards with drivers B. Sellers and M. Snow. They finished 15 seconds off the lead in what was a really battled GTD group and were catching No. 23 quickly until the Porsche had the fuel issue. Third place went to the Ferrari 488 GT3 of Scuderia Corsa after a rough fight with the Audi R8 LMS GT3 No. 44 of Magnus Racing where Balzan managed to have the upper hand on Lally.
The Championship now will resume in the 10 hour race of Petit LeMans.
No. 7 Audi, Pole in LMP1 H at Lone Star LeMans. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
Audi managed to get pole in a very difficult and exciting session that saw many teams loose their lap times due to exceeding the track limits on several turns but specially at turn 9 and 19. Two main events are taking place this weekend, one is the WeatherTec SportsCar Championship and the other is the World Endurance Championship and both have different regulations for the public to observe, in the WeatherTec, cars are allowed to go over the track limits which is more common to see at turn 19 but in the WEC track limits must be respected. In race trim cars that exceed track limits will be warned and if they continue to do it they will be sanctioned which could clearly cost the race. For qualifying, the lap times in which they exceeded the track limits were deleted.
You have to take into consideration that these were 20 minute qualifying sessions in which 2 drivers must set a time since the average lap time defines the grid position, the cars take about 1 minute 47 seconds per lap at their fastest speed in LMP1, the time is about 1 minute 55 seconds in LMP2 and in the LMGTE Pro and Am categories the times round little over the 2 minutes. Coming out of the pits and going into the pits mean about 6 minutes lost including the beginning of the session and the driver change plus the time they take to change drivers. This leaves the drivers with around 13 minutes to set their times, meaning about 2 or 3 good laps at the most. Exceeding track limits in one lap means loosing it which seriously affected the outcome of the qualifying sessions today.
Dalla Lana, Lamy and Lauda will part from Pole in the Aston Martin No. 98. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
In the LMGTE Pro class the fastest combination of lap times set the No. 95 Aston Martin of N. Thiim and M. Sorensen in pole with a time of 2:04.610 beating the AF Corse Ferrari No. 71 of D. Rigon and S. Bird by 0.042 seconds. Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK managed the 3rd grid position less than 2 tenths of a second from pole ith car No. 66 driven by S. Mücke and O. Pla. (Positions LMGTE Pro: 95/71/66/51/97/67/77)
In the LMGTE Am Class it was P. Dalla Lana and P. Lamy in the Aston Martin No. 98 who set the parameter with a time of 2:07.683. 2nd place went to the Porsche of the Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing Team No. 88 driven by K. Al Qubaisi, D. Heinemeier Hansson and K. Estre and third was for the Porsche of KCMG No. 78 driven by C. Ried, W. Henzler and J. Camathias. (Positions LMGTE Am: 98/88/78/86/83/50)
Thiim and Sorensen drove the No. 95 Aston Martin to Pole in LMGTE Pro. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
For the second session, in LMP1-H it was really tricky as it had been for the previous one with several drivers loosing their lap times having to make an extra lap but in LMP1, even though all the teams managed to complete the minimum of one lap per driver, it was hard to post especially good times after they lost one lap. This added extra pressure when Porsche decided not to change tires in order to save a set for the race, Audi got the better hand again but this time with Fässler and Lotterer in the No. 7 car who set an average of 1:45.842. The No. 8 Audi driven by Di Grassi, Duval and Jarvis was 0.141 seconds behind followed by the No. 1 Porsche of T. Bernhard, M. Webber and B. Hartley half a second behind. An excellent effort by Toyota, specially by Kobayashi got them 4th place ahead of the second Porsche and the sister Toyota. Rebellion Racing’s No. 13 will lead the way from the Bykolles Racing Team No. 4.
Menezes, Lapierre and Richelmi set Pole in LMP2. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
LMP2 teams had a difficult time as well trying to cope with track limits, to the point that car No. 26 of G-Drive Racing could not complete the lap of Brundle after he exceeded the track on each try, this puts them last on the grid with a lot of ground to make up during the race. Pole in this class went to car No. 36 of G. Menezes, N. LaPierre and S. Richelmi fo Team Signatech Alpine with a time of 1:555.892. 2nd place went to Manor’s No. 44 of M. Rao, R. Bradley and R. Merhi and third place was for No. 43 of R. Gonzalez, F. Albuquerque and B. Senna in the RGR Sport by Morand car. (Positions LMP2: 36/44/43/42/35/37/31/27/30/26)
Teams play a lot of strategies trying to obtain the best result possible, the fight will include pit stops, tire stints, driver changes and traffic. Tire wear may be tricky due to the changes in temperature due to the time the race starts (5pm local time) which is basically the high temperature peak time and then as it cools down as the night goes through. Remember it’s 6 hours of racing and we expect hard racing among each category.
Pole for Konica Minolta’s Corvette by Ricky Taylor at COTA. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
Ricky Taylor managed to get Pole for tomorrow’s 2 hour 40 minute race at Circuit Of The Americas. Qualifying over, it was the Konica Minolta driver who managed to set fastest lap time in the 15 minute session by just 0.003 seconds over Núñez and Bomarito on board the No. 55 Mazda Prototype that is going faster and faster each session, each race. Third place went for team mates Long and Miller in the Mazda No. 70.
Taylor managed a time of 1:58.712 which wasn’t the fastest time of this class, Long had managed a 1:58.003 earlier in Free Practice 3. That was probably due to the warmer conditions in a very hot afternoon at the Texas racetrack. (Positions Prototype Class: 10/55/70/31/5/0/90/60)
Car No. 52 of Alan and Kimber-Smith managed pole for the PC class. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
For the PC Class, it was car No. 52 driven by R. Alon and T. Kimber-Smith for team PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports with a time of 2:01.847, 2nd place went to the No. 7 from J. Gutiérrez and G. Yacaman with the Starworks Motorsport Team just over 4 tenths of a second from the Pole time. Third place was for R. Van Der Zande and A. Popow in the No. 8 Starworks Motorsport Team as well just 3 thousands of a second away from their team mates. (Positions PC Class: 52/7/8/20/38/85/26/88)
Briscoe and Westbrook qualified on pole for GTLM Class. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
GTLM was led by the time set by the Ford GT of R. Briscoe and R. Westbrook No. 67 (2:04.188). 2nd place went to the Ferrari 488 GTE of G. Fisichella and T. Vilander No. 62 and third place was for the Porsche 911 RSR of P. Pilet and N. Tandy No. 911. The 9 cars competing in this class were separated by less than 1.6 seconds which will make it fun to watch. (Positions GTLM Class: 67/62/911/912/66/4/25/3/100)
Farnbacher and Riberas qualified on pole for GTD Class. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
GTD had Team Seattle / Alex Job Racing in pole with car No. 23 driven by M Farnbacher and A. Riberas with a fastest lap of 2:08.568 just 3 tenths of a second faster than the Audi R8 LMS GT3 of Stevenson Motorsports car No. 9 driven by L. Aschenbach and M. Bell. The third position was for Team Park Place motorsports in the No. 73 Porsche 911 GT3 R driven by P. Lindsey and J. Bergmeister. Just over 3 seconds separated the 14 cars in this category. (Positions GTD Class: 23/9/73/6/63/48/27/16/96/33/44/97/80/007)
The race is scheduled for 11:35 am Local Time with a duration of 2 hours and 40 minutes.
Winning Ford for the GS Class of the Continental Tire SportsCar Championship at COTA. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
It was a definitely fantastic win for Team Multimatic Motorsports with their Ford Shelby GT350R-C. They completed 60 laps and led a strong competitor (Porsche No. 33 of Burkett and Miller) who kept pressure until a mechanical issue on a rear tire forced them to retire 20 minutes from the end. After that it was cruising time just to finish the race for over 27 seconds to the Bodymotion Racing Porsche Cayman GT4 and the No. 76 Ford of Team C360R. It was a hard fought race, contacts were commonplace and pit stops were crucial.
In the ST Class, Team Murillo Racing had one big win and one big loss, at the beginning of the race the BMW No. 65 driven by Mosing and Probert had brake failure on the first lap at the end of the braking zone of turn 12, Mosing did an incredible job to avoid a much heavier accident by finding his way through the braking and turning field and then turn the car sideways before hitting the wall heavily. On the other hand, the Porsche Cayman driven by J. Mosing and E. Foss went on to win after fantastic work from the crew in pit lane and staying out of trouble, they were followed by the Honda No. 93 of HART driven by Gilsinger and Lawrence. The Porsche Cayman No. 19 of team RS1 driven by Strelzoff and Bloum.
Mosing and Foss drove Murillo Racing to the win and into the fight of the Championship in the ST class of the Continental Tire SportsCar Championship. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
Di Grassi, Duval and Jarvis in the No. 8 Audi have led the way in Practice at COTA. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
Lap times keep dropping but the No. 8 Audi has kept on improving steadily from a 1:48.453 to a 1:45.719. Porsche follows closely just above 3 tenths of a second behind with car No. 1 Driven by Bernhard, Webber and Hartley and car No. 2 driven by Dumas, Jani and Lieb jus 0.029 behind their team mates. The Audi No. 7 finished 4th with Fässler, Lotterer and Tréluyer just over half a second from their team mates in first place.
Toyota has kept working hard, also improving bit by bit, Davidson, Buemi and Nakajima are just over 1 second from the fastest time in car No. 5 followed by team mates Sarrazin, Conway and Kobayashi in car No. 6.
In LMP2, the story remains the same, the field is very close and positions are shuffling in each practice session with the times tumbling down as well from the 1:57 to 1:55. Fastest car so far has been the one from Manor, No. 44, followed by car No. 43 from RGR Sport by Morand by just 0.045 seconds and another 2 tenths behind car No. 26 from G-Drive Racing. This is going to be a very, very tough battle not only for pole but during the 6 hours of the race tomorrow where strategy and staying away from trouble will be key factors in getting good results in the end. Just over 2 seconds confine the 10 car field with very good drivers that will go all for all in Qualifying.
The LMGTE Pro category has also evolved into faster times over 2 seconds from practice one in which the No. 95 Aston Martin Vantage is leading the way by 0.805 seconds from team mates in car No. 97. Car No. 51, the Ferrari 488 GTE from AF Corse is 1 second from the fastest car. In LMGTE Am it’s car No. 88, the Porsche 911 RSR from Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing, that dominated the field, followed closely by the No. 98 Aston Martin and the No. 50 Corvette from Larbre Competition.
Qualifying will take place Friday at 5:45pm Local Time for the LMGTE Pro and AM classes (20 minute Session) and at 6:15pm for the LMP1/P2 classes (20 minute Session). Remember that in WEC the fastest time is determined by the average of time between the fastest two drivers that participate in the session so there will be no room for mistakes, each driver will have around 2 laps only to make their fastest time.
Car No. 44 of Manor Racing has been the fastest so far in LMP2. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
Team Multimatic Motorsports managed to get Pole with a time of 2:23.439 in the Grand Sport Class (GS) just ahead of CJ Wilson Racing’s No. 33 Porsche Cayman GT4. Another Ford, the No. 76 from Team C360R qualified 3rd followed by No. 9 Automatic Racing’s Aston Martin Vantage. 8 cars feature in the GS class but are very closely matched which will make this race a very interesting one in terms of strategy.
In the Street Tuner Class (ST) there will be 27 cars competing led by the Pole sitter in the No. 84 BMW 328i from Bimmer World Racing who posted a time of 2:31.459, 2nd place on the grid will be the Nissan Altima No. 44 of CRG-I Do Borrow followed by the Mazda MX-5 No. 34 of Alara Racing.
The difference from 1st to 26th on the grid from the ST class was less than 6 seconds which will make it extremely interesting to watch where there will be some real close racing. We have to remember that these cars have different strengths, some have more power and will go faster on the long COTA straights but others turn really well and tire degradation will be an important factor as well. About 8 seconds is going to be the difference from the leader in GS to the leader of ST so traffic will be a factor as well after around 20 laps into the race. Yellow flags will also be a factor where any lead will be taken away by a probable safety car period and the teams will try to use this as an advantage in their pit stop strategies as well…
J. Clay and T. Cooke got Pole in the ST Class at COTA. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
Audi leads the way in Practice 1 at COTA. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
Just where they left in Mexico, the battle between Audi and Porsche continued today at Circuit Of The Americas with the Audi R18 No. 8 of Di Grassi, Duval and Jarvis managed to put a great lap at the end of the session to clinch the fastest time just 0.047 seconds over the Porsche 919 Hybrid No. 2 of Dumas, Jani and Lieb. The weather cooperated a lot, it was a beautiful day where the teams had to cope with a lot of heat, track temperature rounded above the 44 Centigrade mark while the humidity was high as well. The 2nd Audi No. 7 finished 3rd followed by the second Porsche, car No. 1 and then the two Toyotas who suffer a bit in higher temperatures but still did a solid run to finish within 1.2 seconds of the best time in the 3.4 mile racetrack.
LMP1 was led by car No. 13 of the Rebellion Racing Team followed by the No. 4 of Bykolles Racing Team with over 1 and a half a second of difference. In LMP2 the battle is consistent and G-Drive Racing put the Nissan powered Oreca on top 0.6 seconds ahead of Baxi DC Racing Alpine’s No. 35. Manor’s No. 44 finished 3rd ahead of the Signature Alpine No. 36 and Extreme Speed Motorsports No. 31.
In LMGTE Pro, the leader so far is Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK’s No. 66 just 0.103 ahead of Feraris AF Corsa No. 51 and No. 71. Car No. 50, the Chevrolet Corvette of Larbre Competition led the way from the Porsche No. 88 of Team Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing and Porsche No. 86 of Gulf Racing.
Spaniard rider Dani Pedrosa fought his way from 8th on the grid to take the lead of the Misano Grand Prix in a dramatic series of solid passing maneuvers and pace. Initially he made his way to 6th position at the start of the race and then kept his cool behind Dovisiozo and Viñales while at the front of the race, poleman Lorenzo was beginning to take the heat from local hero Rossi. The Italian did make his move on his team mate and immediately pushed hard to try and make a difference to what Lorenzo could not respond. Marquez battled it out to catch Lorenzo but could not really make a move and apparently tried to keep the rhythm hoping for the Yamaha’s Medium Option tires to give up. Marquez chose the Hard option for the front and Medium Rear which did not pay off today while Pedrosa chose the Soft front and Medium rear which certainly gave him advantage in the third and tightest sector setting a new race lap record on the way to the line. Rossi had to settle for second place, he simply could not respond to Pedrosa’s lap times, third went to Lorenzo, Marquez faded away a bit in fourth place followed by Viñales in the Suzuki, Dovisiozo in 6th with the Ducati followed closely by Ducati’s test rider Michelle Pirro who came in to replace Andrea Iannone who had an accident in Friday Practice 1 and was ruled out due to a back injury. Cal Crutchlow finished 8th followed by Pol Espargaro and Alvaro Bautista completing the top 10.
Pedrosa played well to team mate Marquez’ favor by taking the lead of the race from Rossi, 43 points make his lead advantage in the Championship but if the Italian had won he would have taken 5 points more away. Pedrosa’s chances in the Championship regain momentum as well climbing to 4th in the standings 17 points behind Lorenzo as the riders head to Aragon for the next race.
Dani Pedrosa, winner in Misano. Copyright @ Motogp.com
